Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs SteelFusion comparison

Lenovo and Riverbed are both solutions in the HCI category. Lenovo is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.0, while Riverbed is ranked #27. Lenovo holds a 1.3% mindshare in HCI, compared to Riverbed’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Lenovo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Read 5 Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series reviews

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1,013 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SteelFusion

Read 2 SteelFusion reviews

437 Views
111 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

SteelFusion

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

SteelFusion and Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series are competing solutions in enhancing IT infrastructure. Users believe Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series has the upper hand due to its advanced features, despite SteelFusion's favorable support and pricing.

Features:SteelFusion offers data centralization, WAN optimization for remote operations, and branch productivity enhancement. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series provides a robust hyperconverged infrastructure, seamless scalability, and comprehensive virtualization support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:SteelFusion facilitates integration with a streamlined process and extensive support, aiding businesses with limited IT resources. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series requires more deployment effort, supported by detailed documentation and responsive service.

Pricing and ROI:SteelFusion's competitive setup cost leads to quicker ROI through lower initial investment. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series requires higher initial expenditure but offers substantial ROI with increased efficiency and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

March 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Ranking in HCI

20th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SteelFusion

Ranking in HCI

27th

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is 1.3%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SteelFusion is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Genesis Dapoza

Email Administrator at Technopaq, Inc.

simplifies management for clients familiar with VMware, and offers a user-friendly management and configuration experience

With the VX machines, the clients often confuse the hardware itself with the services and resources. VMs are configured according to resources - memory, hard disk capacity, and network. These resources, including memory and processor, are actually shared on the VX Series. So, if the server's processor is underpowered or unreliable for the VMs, many of the VMs will encounter issues. Ideally, the physical server configuration should align more closely with the needs of the virtual servers. The drawback is that the hardware resources (CPU, memory, storage) are shared among all the VMs running on the VX Series. If the server's processor is underpowered for the VMs, many of the VMs might have performance issues. An improvement could be to have more granular control over resource allocation to VMs.

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it_user866178

Chief Technology Officer at MAZZETTI+GBA

Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices

The level of tech support depends on who you get. There are some techs that just read the script and ask you if you’ve rebooted, but once you get past that - or if you have a very technical issue - the support is great. They really know the product and get you up and running again ASAP.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The VX machines are scalable."

"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series' deployment is easy. We are a tier-one platinum partner who is into multiple implementations."

"We find the setup quite straightforward and very easy."

"The clients like the solution’s simplicity."

"Installation is straightforward because it's a vSAN. It only took one or two days."

"Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices. All services that need to be local to the user exist on local servers. Users run applications and access data locally while the data is constantly being synced to Central, and protected. If an edge device fails, we can recover quickly."

Cons

"Support could be better."

"The product must provide AI features."

"With the VX machines, the clients often confuse the hardware itself with the services and resources. VMs are configured according to resources - memory, hard disk capacity, and network. These resources, including memory and processor, are actually shared on the VX Series. So, if the server's processor is underpowered or unreliable for the VMs, many of the VMs will encounter issues. Ideally, the physical server configuration should align more closely with the needs of the virtual servers."

"The user management could be a bit better. It's something they could improve upon in future releases."

"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series needs to improve its stability. Its resolution should be faster."

"Setting up disks for use is a multi-step process that could use some refinement. Setting up a core-to-core replication or DR strategy is also cumbersome."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is room for improvement in the licensing structure, maybe. Regarding sizing the resources, sometimes it's difficult to calculate/compute them based on the client's requirements."

"The tool is expensive."

"You need to pay a license for additional features. If we need to monitor hardware for the automatic alert notification, we need to pay them."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"Price is an issue – this is expensive stuff. My advice is to beat up Riverbed as much as possible on price. These things are expensive and there is room for negotiation."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Healthcare Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series?

The VX machines are scalable.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series?

The licensing model is moderately complex. The tool is expensive. It is VMware’s fault, though.

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What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series?

The product must provide AI features. It depends on VMware since the core is software. The solution must provide a more detailed plan to enable simplicity of use.

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Comparisons

VxRail vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 27% of the time

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 21% of the time

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 8% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series Competitors

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs SteelFusion

Compared 100% of the time

More SteelFusion Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HCI

March 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series product report

Buyer's Guide

HCI

March 2025

Download SteelFusion product report

Also Known As

Lenovo VX Series, ThinkAgile VX Series

No data available

Overview

Differentiating yourself from the competition is vital in today’s fast-moving business environment. To support your business, IT systems must be simple, agile, and cost-effective so you can meet your customers’ requirements to be ever online. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series enables you to meet these requirements by focusing on the business outcome you require, rather than on building your infrastructure.

ThinkAgile VX Series, powered by VMware vSAN, is available in several models. Each is preconfigured, pretested, and optimized to provide the simplest way to bring a new VMware hyperconverged environment online. If you have an existing VMware environment, the VX Series can integrate into it easily.

Designed for any size business from SMBs through large enterprises, VX Series can be used as infrastructure for remote office/branch office (ROBO) and retail stores as well as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and enterprise applications.

Lenovo

Riverbed SteelFusion is the first and only hyper-converged infrastructure for branch IT, enables 100% consolidation of branch data and servers from remote sites into data centers, delivering complete data security and centralized data protection, without compromising on any of the benefits of running branch services locally for your users. SteelFusion eliminates the need for physical servers, storage and backup infrastructure at branch locations, creates the ability to instantly provision and recover branch services, and provides full visibility and superior performance of on-premises and cloud-based applications, leading to dramatic increases in data security, business continuity, agility and operational efficiency.

Riverbed

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Roxtec, Engen, Bobst, CBP, IUCN, Mahoning County, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet

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